Aren’t you amazed when the sun illuminates your heart? When it breaks through the clouds of your thoughts and January troubles revealing its infinite Presence?

Afternoon shadows on the deck

Today I have been experiencing such feelings of gratitude and joy for so many of you. Those of you who share with comments, emails, messages, phone calls. My life is surely blessed. I am rich with your kindness, your presence, your caring.

I can’t tell you how many people reach out daily offering words of wisdom, strength, love and caring. Dozens, it seems. Rarely passes a day without someone sharing his or her personal thoughts, strengths, interpretations, gratitude. It is truly amazing.

Branches

We ARE all connected. I fall down; you help me up. You stumble; I reach out a hand. You cry; I wipe your tears. I struggle; you help.

It can be so simple. Our connection with one another is so easily strengthened by words of encouragement. We are so often mirrors for one another. What I can’t see, you can. What you can’t see, perhaps I can.

As many of you know, I’ve struggled in the first three weeks of this blog to discover its purpose, its intent, its core. If you look around the blogging world you can usually summarize a blogging intent in a few words. Many blogs connect readers with a place. Others are nature blogs. Photography blogs. Poetry blogs, writing blogs, spiritual blogs, teaching blogs.

Sunshine peeks through two trees

You name it; that blog exists. My blog last year was so focused. 365 days of going outside every day. No struggles to define it. It simply was.

This afternoon a new friend, Jane (who just happens to live in Lake Superior country and writes a blog called Crazy…Once Again) offered an insight which spoke to me deeply. She said “What you convey here resonates with us and encourages us to see past the edges of ourselves.”

It was an AH-HA moment!

Yes. Thank you, Jane. That is what this blog is about. It encourages us (you and me) to see past the edges of ourselves. Through writing, photography, sharing personal stories, walking in these Upper Peninsula woods, exploring, finding stones on the shores of Lake Superior.

Thank you so very much for all of you. We are many branches of one giant tree. Beneath a golden shining sun. A tree hug for all of you…

Tree hug!

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About Kathy

I live in the middle of the woods in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Next to Lake Superior's cold shores. I love to blog.

Love the photos! Your eye is wonderful. The perspectives fresh. And the new blog wonderful too! I am checking out some of the links on yor blogroll that are very intresting. I needed distractions and beauty tonight and so glad to surf friend’s sies that I don’t seem to get to visit often enough.

Kim, it is great to see you here as well! I love looking at your blog http://winterjournal.wordpress.com/ You have the greatest photographs! Hope you enjoyed some of the blogroll links and maybe we’ll still get to meet in Marquette one of these days.

I loved the sun between us photo as well. Then I went back and looked at all of them again. I didn’t get the tree hug photo the first time…then I did, the tree has ARMS! 🙂

My blog is similar in that it might be about anything at all at any moment. I struggle too with wondering if I should rein myself in and focus on one concept. Is it the banker to student to librarian? The dog trainer? The truck safety advocate? The person who pushes people to take time to see the world, to say everything that needs to be said to their loved ones? Who is my blog representing?

I think I’ve decided that I am all those things and my blog will have to be all those things too. It works for me. I don’t fit in a box, neither do you, so blog away with no fear!

I also decided that a person could explain all of humanity with pictures of trees! 🙂

Hi, Dawn, you are so very right. We don’t need to fit into a box. The minute we start doing that…we need to see past the edges of that box! LOL. It’s interesting what we bloggers think about. And YES we could explain all of humanity with trees. Who would have thought they would even have arms and give hugs?

There is something nice about being surprised by another entry from UPWOODS….I smile, opening it, and touching and tasting pictures and words and picturewords and wordpictures….and allowing them all to settle within me……realizing we are indeed all connected and it is all gift after all……the realizations of our connectedness….with each other, with other species…with plants and trees and rainbows and snowdrifts and sunbeams and moonbeams….and feathers and rocks….

There is something nice about what connections do for each of us…..I smile and send these words and Moses sends his purrs as he watches the computer screen….

Hi there Ms. Fountainpen, tasting pictures!! Wow, those words blow me away. I am learning to slow down and look at pictures and FEEL them. This is really new for me. A friend mentioned a couple of days that he looks at pictures with his whole body. That feels amazing. And yes, our interconnectedness…even with dear Moses. Hi kitty!

Thank you for the tree hug and for the sun between the two trunks and for continuing to publish a blog. We would have missed you so much if you had stopped after 365 days that I just don’t want to think about it! 🙂

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have
into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos
to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast,
a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes
sense of our past, brings peace for today,
and creates a vision for tomorrow.
– Melody Beattie

I saw this post on the day of publishing, but wanted to sneak in after the “dust of the comments” had settled. I’m so glad to have reiterated the echos of your own heart… it’s only our own quiet voices against the roar of the the world at times. I struggle constantly with that echo but it’s only when I’m true to me that I feel my best and strongest voice. Your post about “cabin dreams” was awesome. Let her rip!!!

Jane, ever since you made this comment I’ve experienced a deep peace concerning this blog. A peace of simply sharing what my heart/soul reveals…what nature reveals…and feeling love and joy about that. Thank you again. (And thanks to the many others who have said the same thing in different words…preparing the soil so the seed could be planted at the right time.)

Guess what, Amy? I had posted this very same photo last summer. Can’t recall the date right now…but at the time was not thinking about it as a hugging tree. Interesting how a photo can represent one thing one time, and another later. To think we can find people hugging trees!

Although I don't reply to every comment on every blog, I do read all comments with mesmerized interest and try to return the favor by visiting YOUR blog or at least sending you heartfelt well wishes. Cancel reply

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